ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — As Rory McIlroy arrived at the 11th tee box at the Old Course, he was nearly five hours into his round, and the group ahead was still standing there, waiting.

Up on the green, the pin bent over, flexed like a bow without the arrow, the flag stiff as plywood. Another perplexing shot sat ahead, and McIlroy’s mood was right there with the field, which collectively slumped its shoulders and threw its hands to the sky.

“I was starting to get very frustrated,” McIlroy said.

Fire a bogey-free 63 one day, follow it up with a birdie-free 80 the next, and pulling out every last curly lock of hair seems a reasonable response.

The British Open became a horrendous multicar pileup Friday afternoon, one well worthy of rubbernecking should calamity be your thing. In an excruciating second round, one that was halted for 65 minutes because 40-mph winds wouldn’t allow balls to sit still on the greens, 4-foot putts became adventures, hats were ripped off heads, and the only survivors were the early commuters who missed the wreck altogether.

“I just let it get away from me a little bit,” McIlroy said.

He wasn’t alone. The leader board showed South African Louis Oosthuizen — a competent golfer who has been all but incompetent in major championships — holding a commanding advantage without a true command performance. His 5-under 67, which began in the relative still at 6:41 a.m., not only got him to 12-under 132 for the tournament, but it allowed him to head for cover with the comfort of a five-shot lead.

“I’m very confident the way I’m playing,” he said. “It’s probably the position everyone wants to be in.”

Rub it in. Oosthuizen’s advantage is over Mark Calcavecchia, the 50-year-old jokester who won this event in 1989 — and was in the only group that played before Oosthuizen, heading out at 6:30 a.m.

The stats were stark. Of the first 51 players to begin play, nearly half — 24 — broke par. Englishmen Paul Casey (69) and Lee Westwood (71) were among them, and both stand at 6-under 138. At 9:31 a.m., Martin Kaymer teed off, and managed a 1-under 71. After that, 75 players took to the Old Course and completed their rounds before play was called due to darkness at 9:45 p.m. None of them managed a sub-par round.

“It was certainly one of the tougher days I’ve ever played,” said Tiger Woods, who said his 73 — which left him at 4-under 140 for the tournament — was “absolutely” one of his best rounds of the year, given the circumstances.

In a way, the entire situation caught the field off guard. After teeing off at 1:31 p.m. and opening with three straight pars, McIlroy had just blistered a drive to the middle of the fourth fairway. As he and his playing partners, Lucas Glover and Tim Clark, sized up their approach shots, a rules official approached. Shortly thereafter, at 2:40 p.m., a horn blew three times, and the players headed for cover, the first wind delay in the Open since 1998.

“I don’t think they should have called us off the golf course,” McIlroy said. “When we got back out there, the conditions hadn’t changed. The wind had probably got a little bit worse. Probably wasn’t a smart move.”

The 21-year-old from Northern Ireland, though, conceded that he did not manage the situation well. He had played nine competitive rounds on the Old Course and never failed to break 70. Now, after six bogeys and one double, he can still honestly say he has never shot in the 70s around here. None of the 22 players who posted 63 in a major championship previously had ever followed with such a miserable score.

“It’s just very, very difficult out there,” McIlroy said.

Players constantly addressed their ball in the fairway, stepped away, considered another club, addressed the ball again, stepped back — and shrugged.

“We didn’t get what Louis got,” Woods said. “He got it 16 holes downwind. We didn’t quite get that out there. That’s the way it goes. If you get a good break, you have to capitalize on it. He certainly did. For everyone else, we had to grind it out, gut it out.”

(Click here if you are unable to view this photo gallery on your mobile device) The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek celebrates the life of its founder Ruth Bancroft who died at 109 on November 26, 2017. The Ruth Bancroft Garden is a nonprofit public dry garden that was planted by Mrs. Ruth Bancroft in 1972 and was opened to the...